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Friday, June 15, 2012

Microsoft TechEd 2012 - Day 4

TechEd's Hidden Gems - Birds of a Feather aka BOF

People who've been coming to Microsoft's TechEd for a few years have
discovered several hidden "gems". If you think TechEd is all about attending
sessions all day long, getting your head filled with information, you'd only be
half right. There's so much more going on, and, in my opinion, much better stuff
than just sitting there watching. I like attending the Birds of a Feathers. Why?
Because they are discussion sessions. You get to hear what issues people are
really facing (surprise, a lot of them are the same ones I face!) and you get to
toss out your own issues for people to weigh in on. Try that at a regular
session. You might get a 30 second response. Meh.

One of the Birds of a Feather sessions I enjoyed was Enterprise SharePoint
Developer. We heard all sorts of dirty laundry. Where else can you go and say,
hey, tell me what's going wrong with your company? Ha! That sounds ominous, but
really its much more good natured and the people who participate in the
discussion are more about how issues they had and how they solved those issues,
which helps everyone else.

I heard people give their opinions on using RBS with SharePoint 2010, which I
thought was the way to go, but now, maybe not so much. I heard people talking
about the challenges with trying to hire good SharePoint people and picked up
some good interview questions. And I picked up some good tips on how to deal
with "No Code" solutions.

What's the best part of the Birds of a Feather? They were recorded this year
and will be available soon to you, at no charge, here: